Words for Kells
by Twisted Midnight Dreams
Summary: Points in time with Brendan, Cellach, Aisling, Pangur Bán, and Aidan.
1. first

_**Fifty Words for Kells**_

**There's not as much Aisling as some people might be happy with.**

…**I think I like the Abbot too much. I had to cut waaay back on scenes of him.**

**I don't own The Secret of Kells.**

**Secure:** Debris from the shattered walls still littered the ground, but as Brendan stepped into Kells, he felt safe for the first time in nearly two decades.

**Thinner: **"You _idiot!_ You don't give blood thinners to a child that cut his leg open!" Abbot Cellach roared over the prone body of his nephew.

**Flood:** Controlling the boat took all of his strength, and Aidan wouldn't remember much beyond the utter terror and the flames fading far behind.

**Lessening:** As Brendan rushed to tell him of the places he traveled to show the Book, Cellach felt the crushing weight of his guilt lifting, if only a little.

**Hideous:** Crom Cruach was awfulness beyond Brendan's imagination.

**Drop:** Brother Tang sometimes woke long after sunset, swearing he heard bodies hitting the snowy ground; Abbot Cellach always did.

**Angel:** _of course it's coming for me_ _cowering in the dark weak old useless I need time but please _please_ let me see him again before I go to Hell—_"Uncle?"

**Monochrome: **He stared out at the remnants of Kells from the tower, remembering that it was once more than grey and red.

**Purchase:** Sometimes Brendan wondered why the Vikings were so desperate for gold.

**Guest:** Aidan stared into the fire after the Abbot had left, painfully recalling that he was naught but a guest, alone with only his memories…

**Emotion:** …and then Brendan returns with the Eye and optimism, and Aidan returns to his high spirits.

**Mumble:** Aidan smiled at the child—he acted the same way, the first time he met Columb-Cille.

**Graphic:** Aisling's human form shattered and was torn apart and eaten by the darkness…

**Heart:** …but when Crom Cruach was defeated, her soul condensed into her wolfish form and she could simply _be_ again.

**Hiding:** After Brendan returned, the Abbot sometimes stood behind the scriptorium door, listening to the tales of other lands he spun for the other brothers.

**Lifetime: **Aisling would live a hundred times longer than any human, and she would get attached to quite a few of them; the only one she would remember forever was Brendan.

**Mathematics:** Calculating angles and weight distribution out loud helped him think, as well as taught Brendan math.

**Spreading:** The Vikings were everywhere, an epidemic of terror.

**Cuddling:** He held his three-year-old nephew to his chest tightly. _You are innocent, yet you have lost everything… I will protect you._

**Bed:** He was awake, yet Brendan was already there—and he wasn't screaming curses or burning or bleeding—the first night without nightmares.

**Wrath:** Every moment of every day, Cellach regretted that the last memory Brendan would have of his uncle was his rage.

**Slowing:** Aidan's body was slowing, but his mind was as sharp as ever; he didn't bother avoiding the truth. "I'm dying, Brendan."

**Compelling:** Brendan watched as his uncle drew a magnificent picture of Kells before the attack, inspired by the book.

**Food:** Brendan soon learned that explosions of smoke were only good with ink, not lunch.

**Leap:** The white wolf ran far ahead of him, leaping over roots taller than herself, and Brendan realized how much he had missed this.

**Anybody:** Brendan never turned anyone down when they requested for him to read the Book aloud.

**Freezing:** Cellach dug though the cold ashes in the scriptorium even as the snow covered it, even as his fingers numbed, even as the tears froze to his face, looking for the slightest evidence that they hadn't been entirely incinerated.

**Overhead:** They flinch whenever a crow flies overhead, convinced that the Vikings were on their trail, set on avenging the three the wolves took down.

**Tackling:** Brendan learns that Faerie wolves like slamming into humans for their own amusement.

**Relative:** The Abbot acted so defensive about his title, Aidan was surprised that he let Brendan call him 'Uncle'.

**Prayer:** No matter how many were being buried that day, no matter how tired he was, the Abbot prayed over every single soul that was lost.

**Capture: **Sometimes Brendan wondered what might've happened if the Vikings took prisoners…what his imagination supplied gave him nightmares of his Uncle, refusing to build defenses for the Vikings and whipped or burned on a fire or swallowed by Crom. And then he wakes up screaming.

**Pose:** "Stop moving," Aisling ordered. "I'm drawing a picture of you!"

**Poverty: **"Uncle? Why do the monks have beautiful robes and the villagers don't?"

**Story:** "Aisling isn't a story, Uncle," he said quietly. "I'm going to visit her right now."

**Cat:** Pangur Bán could pass through any barrier with Aisling-after all, cats know no boundaries.

**Stop:** _We cannot stop. We cannot stop. We cannot stop._ He chanted it over and over in his head until a worried Brendan mentioned that he was doing so out loud.

**Hazard:** Broken walls no longer stopped the winds, which blew the ashes throughout the town so that everyone had to stay inside or risk suffocation.

**Catalogue:** Aidan had only the finest inks in Iona, and was surprised when Kells had the supplies to make them.

**Telephone:** When paper could be spared, Brendan wrote messages to Kells and threw them into the wind, wishing there was a true way to communicate with home.

**Cuddly:** Pangur's favorite spot to sleep was in Brendan's robes…while he was wearing them.

**Unlucky:** Cellach lost everything; a decade's work, his hope, his confidence, his ability to illuminate, his only family.

**Scratch:** Pangur was proud that she had Viking blood on her claws.

**Tender:** At Brendan's plea, Aisling stood above the ill Abbot's bed, trying to heal him and humming along to Brendan's whispered prayers.

**Coal:** "The Abbot cannot light the fireplace anymore," Tang whispered sadly. "He falls into madness at the smell."

**Reluctance:** Cellach stood just inside the border of the wall, Brendan just outside of it.

**Tired:** Howling woke him up faster than splashing water over his head, though whether it was fear or hope, even Brendan couldn't be certain.

**Slant:** Now that there was no Wall, Cellach threw himself into improving the huts -– making them warmer, letting the water slide off the roof better, and such.

**Giggle:** Aisling giggled as the old man put himself in front of his nephew—"I'd never hurt him, silly!"

**Foundation:** Abbot, artist, faerie, cat, all stood in a circle, their worlds mixing, building a strange, fantastic new one...


	2. second

_**(fifty more)**_

_**Words for Kells**_

_Because everything else is refusing to be written._

_MOAR CELLACH YAAAY_

_The Secret of Kells © Cartoon Saloon_

**Love**: Too late Cellach realized that Aidan's meddling was not from an obsessive desire to finish the Book, but to give guidance and love to a boy that hadn't been given enough from the one he should have.

**Hate**: Aidan suppressed a surge of icy fury at what the Northmen had done, gently wrapping his arms around Brendan's shivering, sobbing form.

**Pain**: Migraines were not a great help when he was working on the wall, but he forced himself to go on until the hammer slipped from his hands.

**Joy**: "This is no dream." Fearful anger washed away, replacing itself with incredulous, nearly unbearable joy.

**Fear**: _Beat, beat, beat_ against the doors against their chests against their minds, (_tick, tick, tick_ time running out) and the Brothers stand together one last time as the crash splinters everything else.

**Trust**: "Come on, you won't fall here!" she laughed, running through the dark branches; Brendan took a deep breath and followed.

**Betray**: It hurt on a level that he refused to acknowledge when Brendan spoke of the Wall with the same distain he heard from the other Brothers' muttering.

**Promise:** "I won't leave until you finish the Book—but you mustn't delay me for too long, lad," Aidan chuckled softly, gently touching his hand.

**Appreciate: **Brendan knew that the forest was beautiful, but he was very glad that Aisling was there to show him the smaller, subtler miracles as well.

**Annoy: **"Never touch my chalk again."

**Death:** Nobody even knew which piles of ashes were huts or had been people who had been cornered together.

**Blood:** After lying in the freezing snow for so long, the blood running down his chest seemed to burn.

**Grave**: There was something incredibly surreal about confronting a grave with your own name on it.

**Life:** The forest and Kells and the animals and the Brothers and Uncle and Aisling and so much more; life in a single page.

**Breath:** "Uncle! Please, calm down, just breathe," (though his own breath was shaking horribly—_please don't die_) "just breathe, I'm here, I'm here."

**Mind:** Aidan felt a chill run up his spine at the writing on the walls; they were Cellach's thoughts and mind, but he couldn't understand it—and he knew that it wasn't merely because he was no architect.

**Honey:** When Brendan tended to the hives after meeting Aisling, he found himself whispering his thanks to the bees as well as to God.

**Worthy:** "I don't get it, Pangur," he said sleepily. "Why did he pick me instead of Brother Leonardo or Square?"

**Toy:** "I think you need some toys," Aidan laughed as Pangur batted at his hair.

**Guard: **Though neither of them knew it, Aisling watched over the two monks each night until they crossed the boundaries of her forest.

**Moonlight:** "I spin voice-magic out of mist and moonlight…

**Sunshine:** "…while you, Brendan, make picture-magic from ink and sunlight."

**Wish: **Brendan wished that Aidan could have came to Kells for more joyous reasons.

**Reliability: **After Aidan found himself leading them to yet another dead-end, he sighed and asked Brendan to lead.

**Heaven:** Tiny Brendan whispered a question as he sketched out the first plans; "It looks really tall…is the Wall going to reach Heaven?"

**Tailor:** There were no tailors left after the attack, but Tang managed to repair the Abbot's robe; it was duller and more prone to tearing, though Cellach was too faded himself to care.

**Illusive:**Brendan felt a flicker of guilt when he spoke to Aisling again, after he spent so long wondering if she'd been a dream.

**Scenery:** "I missed seeing more than walls when I looked out," Aidan quietly admitted as they wandered through the trees.

**Description:** Though the Brothers never thought the Vikings would go so far out of their ways to attack Kells, the refugees' descriptions of the attacks kept quite a few of them from sleeping.

**Sleep:** Pangur sometimes coaxed her kittens to sleep in the old Abbot's sleeves; they were quite roomy and it kept them (and him) comfortably warm.

**Taste:** The crops grown after the attack surpassed what had came before in size and flavor; nobody wanted to think about _why_.

**Decade:** Nearly two decades of hopelessness took heavy tolls.

**Potential:** Brendan only unlocked his true potential after defeating Crom; sometimes he wondered if the dark god had been the one who locked it away.

**Confide:** Aidan and Brendan filled the colder nights with tales of their lost Brothers, tales that they would never have dared trust with anyone else.

**Follow:** Though Cellach flinched every time a twig snapped underfoot, he determinedly followed Brendan through the winding path.

**Threat:** It was easy to forget that Aisling was the ruler of the forest, able (and willing) to tell the creatures that resided within to tear any intruders apart.

**Together:** "…I wish Aidan could have met you," Brendan whispered to the girl perched in the Abbot's window.

**Remember:** It was weeks before Cellach wouldn't flinch when Brendan came up the stairs.

**Song:** "Howling isn't anger," she explained, "but words, for telling the others feelings or messages or songs."

**Electricity: **Cellach watched in disbelief as his tiny nephew, instead of crying and hiding at the roaring storm, tried to climb onto the ledge to see it better and _giggled_ at the lighting, trying to grab it in his hands.

**Fall:** With every leaf that fell, another memory of times past awoke, often melancholy—until Brendan decided to chase and catch them all before they hit the ground; Cellach laughed himself sick.

**Trap:** After seeing what they did with her own eyes, Aisling found herself killing every Viking that went within miles of her forest.

**Experiment:** Switching ingredients to the ink is never a good idea—especially when you're wearing your favorite robes at the time.

**Balance:** Brendan finally climbed down the oak tree without falling, only to slip on a leaf and land on his face.

**Missing: **"I promise to tell you next time I go into the forest," Brendan said apologetically, bowing to his uncle for the first time in years.

**Broken:** Brendan had a natural talent at healing people's spirits, though he knew that Cellach's would always have scars.

**Sympathy:** The survivors gave Cellach less hate than he deserved, or so he believed.

**Bone:** "Eat some more, your hands are positively skeletal," Aisling insisted.

**Fragment:** Only a few would be able to tell what everything in the Chi-Rho page meant, being taken from Brendan's life, but that was alright—what fragments of his tale that could be discerned just made it that much more beautiful.


End file.
